Mini Banana Muffins

I brought these mini banana muffins to the Eat 2 Run Faster workshop hosted by MEC earlier this week and announced to everyone there that the recipe was on my website for them, all good! Apparently I (totally inadvertently) lied. I searched for it myself yesterday and came up completely empty handed. Oops! Okay, so HERE is the recipe for the most delicious banana muffins that make the absolute perfect carb-loading snack when you’re preparing for a race, or when you just need a quick pre-run snack. I always use these muffins as part of my carb-loading strategy for half-marathons (1-day mini carb-load) or full marathons (3-day carb-load). I also will have one on marathon morning as part of my pre-race eats (along with oatmeal, etc). But mostly I love having them in the house as often as possible to snack on when I’m in heavy training mode – as one tends to be when they are training for a marathon!!

Makes 30 mini muffins

Ingredients

• 1½ cups mashed banana (about 3-4 very ripe bananas)
• 2 eggs, beaten (or 1 Tbsp chia seeds whisked together with 3 Tbsp almond milk sit until gelled)
• ¼ cup maple syrup
• ¼ cup honey (or brown rice syrup)
• ½ cup butter or coconut oil, melted
• 1 tsp vanilla extract
• 1 cup ground rolled oats (oat flour)
• 1 cup instant oats (quick cooking)
• 1 tsp baking powder
• ½ tsp sea salt
• ¼-½ cup hemp hearts – optional: adds omega-3 fatty acids
• ¼-½ cup chocolate chips – optional
• ¼-½ cup walnut pieces – optional

 Directions

1. Heat oven to 350. Line mini muffin tins with 30 mini muffin parchment paper cups.
2. In a large bowl, beat together the banana, eggs (or chia gel), maple syrup and honey, butter (or coconut oil) and vanilla.
3. Add the ground oats, oats, baking powder and salt, and fold in. Add hemp, chocolate chips and/or nuts if using.
4. Divide batter between muffin cups.
5. Bake 16 minutes.

Enjoy!

To deliciously healthy food and stronger faster running… Cheers,

Sarah Cuff, RHN